Nonfiction is exhausting
I'm reading Antiracism as a daily practice and boy do I feel exhausted after reading for a bit. It's a great book, it's extremely well written, and it discusses important things.
And I walk away from a reading session just feeling absolutely spent. Tense and exhausted and perhaps overwhelmed.
There are many practical suggestions for antiracist living, one of them being to go to black and brown spaces when appropriate. A black person she wrote about made this suggestion because she had been invited to join a lot of white spaces, to serve on boards in white spaces, but it was rare that white people came to her black spaces to serve or gather as community members.
And it gets me thinking about the activist work I've done in the past - speaking against a grant for a DUI enforcement officer position that was likely to disproportionately affect black people. This grant would come from Howard Buffett, son of Warren Buffett, and came forward because Cannabis was being legalized in my state.
Well policing already disproportionately impacts black people in my community - more traffic stops per capita, more drug searches, but a lower rate of drugs found during those searches. Our wealthy areas hardly ever see police driving through, and our wealthy areas are predominantly white. Poor areas have more crime. There, surely, are some reasonable explanations for this, but even if there's no racist intent, there is racist impact.
And anyway. Another time, I helped out at a BLM protest ... it was all white people wearing orange vests helping to essentially keep things in order. I basically stood in front of cars as the protest passed by side streets. This was a bad look, though, and I live with some embarrassment about it. I recall a black person commenting on it, I think later on social media. It wasn't a white-let protest, but ... ugh ... anyway you see my problem?
I've got all this stuff going on in my head. Being overly-critical of my past actions. The same self-criticisms I've considered a hundred times before. And while I'm doing this, I'm also like "oh i need to be doing more and more and more".
She specifically talks about that problem - how white people need to recognize their own humanity, our own limits, and move at a sustainable pace.
But there's another problem. I live with mental disability. I used to be an engaged activist, and now I can't handle going to meetings, I can hardly socialize with my close loved ones, I can barely take care of myself or keep my laundry clean.
It's the same problem I have with the latest Some More News video. It's talking about mutual aid you can do - donate stuff, start a local food pantry, grow food, etc etc.
There's nothing wrong with the book or the video. Yet I am here to commentate.
The problem is that everything is geared toward people of able-body and able-mind. I can't cook for my neighbor. I can barely cook for myself. (not because of skill, but because of disability) I can't donate, I have no money. I can't get involved in black or hispanic community groups, I can barely engage with my personal social network.
So here's one suggestion. These pieces that promote action need to be more focused on the individual who is acting, and considering "What are your personal abilities and needs?" Do you have the space to add communal or other activist work to your life? Not everybody is comfortable socializing. Not everybody is up for organizational work.
Not everybody has the capacity to sacrifice. A lot of people probably do.
I don't think SMN or Jennifer Harvey are trying to harp on disabled people like me to be doing more. Harvey is touching on this issue, though. And SMN might as well (though I doubt it).
I still do some activist work when I am able. It's just very limited, and works like these usually fail to recognize people like me.
I wanna do more. I wish I could. But I have to take care of my mental health. I hope to heal and be more able in the future. But even then, perhaps social-organizational work is not what I'm meant for. Perhaps I'm better off writing commentary or something. Ugh idk.